We All Need Some New Spiritual Motivation

A recent Catholic Stand article reminds us that, back in 1970,

[Joseph Ratzinger] the future pope posited that the faithful of the twenty-first century would be fewer in number, would have lost their cultural hegemony, and would face considerable hardship.  But it was not at all a bleak future that Fr. Ratzinger saw.  Rather, he envisioned a Church that was smaller but deeper, chastened but stronger, and ultimately more faithful, more mature, and better positioned to change the world that would increasingly need its message of hope (Paul A. Escott, 7/6/2022).

Bruised Reeds and Smoldering Wicks

The steep drop-off in Mass attendance continued in our last decade, even before the onset of COVID-19: “From 2014 to 2017, an average of 39% of Catholics reported attending church in the past seven days. This is down from an average of 45% from 2005 to 2008 and represents a steep decline from 75% in 1955” (Gallup, 4/9/18).

While we have inarguably downsized, I do not yet see many hopeful signs of greater faithfulness. The above quotes reminded me of a scriptural reference about our Lord Himself”: “A bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to the nations” (Matthew 12: 20).

Some of those “bruised reeds” and “smoldering wicks” going astray are people whom I love dearly and want to see saved.  I remind myself that no matter how much I love them and do not want them lost, God loves them even more!

My Own Experience

Msgr. Charles Pope (7/20/2022) captures the Church of my maternal grandparents, immigrant father and American born mom, and my own generation in multi-cultural Brooklyn, New York:

The great influx of Catholic immigrants from Europe brought exponential growth to the Catholic population of this country…. Catholic immigrants gathered together in ethnic parishes, creating ethnic neighborhoods in which faith and culture were knitted together…. This vivid reality receded between the 1950s and the 1980s, leaving large structures behind that have proved difficult to maintain and are now being closed in large numbers …. [In what we might look back on as a high water mark] there were the seeds of its own destruction….True dissent from Church teaching was rare, but the rebellion against lawful Church authority likely set the stage for later revolt against what that authority taught. (Msgr Charles Pope, 7/20/2022)

In my Catholic grade school, certain lines were clearly drawn.  On a daily basis, little boys would argue about who was better – the Yankees or the Mets.  Another big discussion was in what branch of the service a boy’s dad had served in World War II (My own dad had not yet arrived in America.).  Still another was each boy’s ethnic heritage. While Brooklyn was and is one of the most multi-cultural places on the planet, we only knew Irish and Italians to exist!

Looking back, the most interesting argument was among those who were also altar boys – as I was, starting in 1969.  We argued over who would hold the paten as the priest distributed the Holy Eucharist.  Each of us instinctively wanted that honor of protecting Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. The fact that even touching the Eucharist was reserved to clerics, and that all were kneeling to receive the Eucharist, also conveyed the extraordinary specialness of the Eucharist.

I believe that the simple resumption of the use of the altar boys’ paten, reserving Eucharistic distribution to clerics and kneeling communicants – as well as adherence to then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s 2004 Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion – would more profoundly impact people more than additional documents on Eucharistic coherence.

Clerical Kicks in the Back End Needed

Leila Miller has provided incredibly honest words which challenge us:

I was a typical, poorly catechized Catholic, playing around with serious sin…. I saw God as a permissive parent who was too “loving” to enforce His own boundaries.… The most damage has come within the Church, where we give the “nice” priests and prelates a pass for the evil they promulgate because they smile, listen intently, and seem to care.  We should prefer a gruff and even harsh St. Padre Pio to the glad-handing clergy who lead us astray, but we are fickle, weak, and spiritually soft – and the enemy knows it (Crisis, 7/14/22).

Truth be told, just about all of us need some serious spiritual kicks in the back end to get us back on the right track to God!